Innocence Lost - Food for thought

What is Innocence?

'Artlessness' and 'Purity' are synonyms of the word innocence, meaning lacking a knowledge of evil.



I often wonder, if I have lost the wonderful quality of innocence, you would often find in the eyes of a child. Innocence, the trait often referred to as 'child like innocence' seems to have vanished in me along the way. Where do you draw the line between innocence and ignorance?

Does gaining worldly knowledge make you devoid of innocence or does it drive away ignorance? I wouldn't really know answers to all the above questions, that seem to be doing rounds in my head for sometime now. But, from what I have recently noticed, I seem to have lost the quality of deriving joy from small pleaures of life. Watching a TV ad recently, where a kid is immensly happy when he is bought an ice-cream worth 5 rupees by his mom, reminded me of my childhood where in buying myself an ice-cream would have made my day. For some strange reason, there isn't quite the same joy in buying a much better, tastier and healthier ice-cream shelling down extra bucks now. What has changed in me, which has caused this? Is it because now, I know there are other pleasures in life which I long for, probably yes. In that case would preserving my innocence have helped me remain happy forever? What do you think?

I'd certainly love to hear back from you all on this.

Let there be peace. .::V::.
Cheers to Life!
~M~

The Onion Saga

Onions add their own flavor and strong aroma to the dishes they are used in, but, anyone involved with preparation of one such dish would know that they'd make you cry like a baby. Ever wondered why they did that to you?

To find out read on, when you slice through an onion, there are enzymes that are released. These enzymes decompose other substances released and form acids while becoming gas/vapor. This gas when comes into contact with water in your eyes, forms a mild Sulfuric acid, among other things. Tear ducts in your eyes produce more water to dilute the irritating Sulfuric acid thus protecting your eyes.

What not to do? Do not rub your eyes with onion juice all over your hands.

Instead move your head away from the onions when slicing them in order to avoid the irritating gas.

What to do?

As a solution, peeling the onions before slicing them and chilling in the refrigerator somewhat reduces the release of gas due to the temperature changes.
From my observations that peeling the onions and keeping them in salt water reduces the release of the irritating gas.

If you want to get a little fancy, there are goggles available that would help you protect your eyes while chopping onions.

If you want to read more on this phenomenon, you'd find that here.

Happy Chopping Onions!



Let there be peace. .::V::.
Cheers to Life!
~M~

Turn your point and shoot camera into super-camera

Very interesting post on lifehacker that explains how to turn your Cannon point and shoot camera into a super camera by replacing the de-facto firmware on it. Simple to follow and yields amazing results. I have just done this to my Cannon A640 and the difference is stunning. This isn't going to do any permanent damage to your camera, so you can always revert back to the proprietary firmware.

Let there be peace. .::V::.
Cheers to Life!
~M~

How does a lie-detector work?

I had my bro ask me a very interesting question today, when watching a movie, "How does a lie-detector work?". And, I didn't accurately know how it worked. So, here I was on my favorite place on the internet, Google ;-) Not surprisingly here to ask question in perspective. Here is a very terse explanation on how it works: http://science.howstuffworks.com/question123.htm

A lie-detector or a poly-graph has multiple sensors recording various readings of the person and these readings are sketched on a plain paper. Change of person's state results in deviation from the standard. The accuracy of the lie-detector's results are subject to the reader.
You can find other interesting results on the same page. Enjoy reading.

Let there be peace. .::V::.
Cheers to Life!
~M~